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Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

thatprivacyguy.com

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Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#991

Post by RaiausderDose »

RaiausderDose wrote: post #295
tobylane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two (and more) exist in chrome://flags in Chrome 147. I'm disabling them now, with the expectation that will prevent the new default. One option I'm leaving as default is "Use LiteRT-LM runtime for on-device model service inference." Any comment on that?

I'm on Chrome 147 too and disabled: "optimization-guide-on-device-model" - Enables optimization guide on device "prompt-api-for-gemini-nano" - Prompt API for Gemini Nano - Prompt API for Gemini Nano with Multimodal Input and deleted weights.bin and the 2025.x folder in "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" Will report if Chrome 148 downloads the model again.

it downloaded the model again...

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#993

Post by niutech »

bityard wrote: post #435
maxloh wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more severe problem is that Google installs model weight files on a per-user basis, meaning Chrome occupies 4 more GB of space for every OS user on your device.

The company I work at has several environments and hundreds of VDI users in each environment. Chrome is the default browser in all of them. By my rough napkin math, this one small change by Google will eat up at least 15 terabytes of new disk space in total. (I sure hope we are using deduplication at the physical storage layer...)

Serious question: why do you use Google Chrome in the first place, when there are better alternatives, e.g. Brave (crypto stuff could be easily disabled) or Vivaldi, both with adblocker?

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#994

Post by niutech »

davb wrote: post #712
EvanAnderson wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would create vastly more support issues. You don't get to choose the software your users need.

Indeed. We look after a huge, very diverse set of users (university science faculty - many thousands in our faculty, but tens of thousands across all faculties and professional services teams). According to https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Chrome has over 65% market share for desktops - not supporting Chrome would be overly restrictive. Our users interact with a huge array of internal and external site…

But Edge, Brave or Vivaldi are based on the same Chromium engine as Chrome.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#995

Post by niutech »

estimator7292 wrote: post #757
qudiqudi wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not force a light-weight browser and prohibit Chrome?

Because due to Google having a near-monopoly on the entire goddamn Internet, a shocking number of websites and services will refuse to work with non-chrome browsers.

E.g. Vivaldi is Chromium-based but doesn't include Nano Banana.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#996

Post by niutech »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #783

I stopped using chrome 15 years ago and de-googled my life 5 years ago. The hardest thing to let go in fact was Gmaps (most alternatives, until recently, were not great) and I'm still captured by android, but rome was not built in a day. Quitting chrome these days is the easiest thing to do. The writing is on the way. You don't control the browser on your network, google does. ANd for better or worse, google's priori…

For GMaps alternative, there are Here WeGo or Bing Maps. For Android, there are Sailfish OS or Ubuntu Touch. For Chrome, there are Brave or Vivaldi (Blink-based). Google is not irreplaceable.

Re: Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent

#1000

Post by mr_machine »

zachrip wrote: post #718
abubakir1997 wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not misleading, AI models (unlike English spelling check) has the potential to mine data on users and invade privacy all under the name of "training the model". I am very skeptical of AI models. Governments and big corp have the ability to exploit AI models and none of them a righteous for us to feel safe from a move like that.

Local models exist as part of the solution to privacy invasion. Not saying google has never been nefarious, but the whole point of local models is that your data doesn't leave your device.

Pretty sure from Google's standpoint, respecting privacy is a downside of local models. For them, the upside is using your compute rather than theirs.
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